Any other D fans out there? I went and saw the movie on Sunday and it was awesome. It was directed by the same guy who did all of their old HBO shows, very very good.
I will say though, if you aren’t already a fan of Tenacious D you might not find it as hilarious as I did. I would recommend going back and watching all of the old episodes and concerts if at all possible. Then you will truly be able to appreciate the greatness that is Tenacious D. 
I love the D. I want to have Kage and Jables’ babies. The Complete Masterworks both rocks my socks off and makes me laugh my ass off. Rock Star Sperm For Sale is the best skit ever.
I saw them play in San Francisco last week. To be honest, it was a bit disappointing. I expected them to rock so hard they’d blow the roof off the house but they seemed to be having technical difficulties. I hope the roadie who “tuned” their instruments got fired after that show. They did play some really awesome stuff, so I’m not complaining too loudly. But it seemed like the show was more about the skits and less about the music and their talent. Also I didn’t really like Lee - they needed to get him off the stage and concentrate on the D.
All that said, I still am definitely going to see the movie at my first opportunity. Long live the D!
I am watching the Lee HBO episode right now off of The Complete Masterworks. I swear, no matter how many times I watch these episodes they never stop being funny.
I saw them there, too… at one point, they were going Milli Vanilli, as I think was mentioned in the SF Gate review (and by Black himself at the time).
I agree; as someone who’s not a D-votee, that was a bit annoying.
I also saw the movie, and I was pretty disappointed. It was a total stoner movie, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing (I love Lebowski and Harold & Kumar, even though I don’t smoke), but this was pretty bad, but in that way that all my friends from UCSC would think it the funniest thing ever.
I am so excited for this movie. I’ve been a D fan since, well, almost since the beginning.
Their CD was mildly disapointing for me, but I’m psyched to see that their HBO director did this movie. Those episodes never get old.
resists urge to start busting out Tenacious D quotes
So, did you like their HBO shows? I’m just curious because I thought the movie was just like a really long version of one of those. I’m not saying it wasn’t silly, of course it was, but there were a few things that had me rolling in the aisles (like the beginning scene with the young JB, holyshit that had me screaming).
I caught the concert in Los Angeles, and it was fantastic. No technical problems whatsoever, and I didn’t feel that the skits cut too much into the epic rockage. Unfortunately, the opening act made me want to climb a tower with a rifle. However, I think that’s the intended consiquence.
As for the movie, I laughed. Tim Robbins was absolutely hilarious and JB and KG are both adorable as usual. I wasn’t going in expecting a Merchant Ivory film, and I wasn’t disappointed. Was it a good film? No. Would I recommend it to other folks? Depends on their tolerance for stupid movies. I hadn’t seen any of their HBO stuff, but if it’s like the movie, I’d probably laugh at it too.
Never saw any. Aside from hearing a few songs and seeing School of Rock, I haven’t had much exposure to them.
My opposing opinion is that fans of Tenacious D might find the film a bit watered down- especially the fans that dig the shorts (JB’s BJ, Rock Star Sperm for Sale, Butt Baby). The film is definitely much more tame, more tame than the first CD even, definitely crafted with the hope of reaching a broader audience.
I’d say that this film could easily bring into the fold about 60% to 70% of the adult fans of School of Rock- not something I’d say of the HBO show, the first CD, or, especially, the shorts.
I’m not terribly upset by this. Impressive thing about Tenacious D is that it has worked so well in so many formats: club show, large scale concerts, music album, music videos, “sit-com”-like T.V. show, and those dirty dirty short films that I love.
Much as I love the raunch, lots of the humor has always been very effectively grounded in a sort of wide-eyed innocence. So, I think it’s a perfectly valid choice to try to make a commercially viable Tenacious D film that won’t scare away all the School of Rock fans. Yes, the new film is much tamer than a lot of the other Tenacious D entries, but it still stays true to the essence of Tenacious D.
I quite liked the film. I enjoyed watching the relationship develop between KG and JB, it really filled the characters out, made them more real. I was glad to see Lee, I thought he was great and I was super-excited to see that they brought back the hilarious Paul F. Tompkins, perhaps my favorite Stand-Up Comic, to reprise his role as the open-mic host.
However, Don’t expect the film to get any better than the opening sequence!!! The film is very good, but the opening sequence with the young JB, and his father, and his muse come to life from a rock poster (perfectly cast celebrity cameos), this sequence is absolutely brilliant! It is so amazingly good that it put me in the frame of mind of “Damn, I’m about to see one amazing movie!!!”
In truth, though, it just ends up being a “very good” movie which is preceded but an amazing opening.
Didn’t consider any of the new songs to match up to the songs from the first album. I had put off buying the soundtrack until after seeing the movie. Now I’m not so sure I’ll buy it.
I thought the movie was very funny in parts, meh in others. I prefer “The Complete Masterworks” overall. In the movie, they just cut-and-pasted scenes from the HBO episodes, and in most cases, they didn’t improve on the original material. The rest was run-of-the-mill dumb comedy filler. That said, I did quite enjoy Ben Stiller’s character, and I loved “Master Exploder” and “Beezleboss”.
Anybody see them on The Daily Show last night?
I never pay attention to Box Office, so I didn’t realize they had such a poor opening weekend. They didn’t show a clip on TDS, explaining to Jon Stewart that showing clips prior to opening weekend didn’t help them at all, so prior to the second weekend they were experimenting with “not showing a clip”.
The whole interview was spent joking about how they “tanked” and that they were now aiming for future cult status. KG worried (jokingly) that the movie did so poorly because moviegoers don’t like fat people.
Honestly, I didn’t know it opened last week until I saw it listed at my local theater. There are some billboards around town, but I only saw a few theatrical trailers (and I go to the movies a lot), and I don’t think I ever saw a television ad. I don’t think the studio can honestly say they did everything in their power to get people to see this movie.
I mentioned in my previous post that I think Black, Gass, and Lynch actually made an effort to present a tamer version of the D in order to appeal to adult fans of School of Rock. I don’t think the marketing folks appreciated this effort. It seems like they were entirely depending on existing Tenacious D fans to be the audience base.
As promoted, it’s target audience is shared with Borat. Since Borat is still doing so well, I think placing the Tenacious D movie in competition with it was a doomed effort.